White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America [Hardcover]

Malka Drucker (Author), Gay Block (Author, Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

They struggled to clear a new path for women; these are the stories of modern spiritual pioneers.

There is an ancient mystical legend that the Bible was written with black fire on white fire. Now, we can only read the black fire (the letters), but someday we might be able to see the white fire. Today, with their voices and their presence growing ever stronger, women spiritual leaders in America are like white fire, and we can see the previously untapped power of female leadership.

This remarkable book gives voice and image to the too often invisible, ignored, or overlooked narrative of women's spiritual leadership in America today. Revealed through insightful interviews and compelling photographic portraits, the women represent both diversity and sisterhood. They offer us new ways of relating to each other, and the Divine.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America, Malka Drucker interviewed 31 female rabbis, ministers, authors, gurus and teachers from all over the United States (though, not surprisingly, nearly half were from California). Included are interviews with Goddess worshipper Starhawk, Princeton professor Elaine Pagels, Hindu saint Ammachi, ashram leader Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati (born Joyce Green in Brooklyn) and the mother-daughter team of Helen and Rebecca Cohen, both Unitarian Universalist ministers. The thrust of this book is definitely toward the left end of the religious spectrum, with almost all of the interviewees reflecting commitments to feminism, tolerance and interfaith understanding. Drucker's writing can be intrusive, as she tends to insert too much of herself and her unnecessary commentary into each interview. Still, the subjects are interesting, and Gay Block's arresting photographs of each leader are memorable.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Malka Drucker is an award-winning author of nearly twenty books, including Jacob's Rescue; The Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays; and Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, another joint project with photographer Gay Block; the Rescuers photo exhibition has traveled to more than seventy venues and was the basis for a Showtime television series. Block's photographs are shown widely in the United States and are held in numerous collections.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Skylight Paths Pub (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893361640
• ISBN-13: 978-1893361645
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 29 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #397,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Malka Drucker is the author of 21 books, including the award-winning-Frida Kahlo, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, Grandma's Latkes and White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America. White Fire won the 2005 PEN Southwest Book Award in non-fiction. Her highly acclaimed Jewish Holiday Series won the Southern California Council on Literature for Children Prize series. Another of her biographies, ELIEZER BEN YEHUDA: Father of Modern Hebrew won the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) Janusz Korczak Literary Competition and Frida Kahlo was chosen as an American Bookseller "PICK OF THE LISTS." She belongs to many literary organizations, including: The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Southern California Council on Literature for Young People, the Association of Jewish Librarians, The Authors Guild, and PEN. Her newest book, Jewish American Heroes, publishes, August 2008.

Ordained in 1998 from the Academy for Jewish Religion, a transdenominational seminary, Malka Drucker is also the founding rabbi of HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism, in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic, exciting, substantial, celebratory, February 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America (Hardcover)

Freud asked what women really want. Rabbi Malka Drucker asks what both women and men want and need, spiritually, today. The answer is individual expression within a community, a fellowship, that supports each of us to bring goodness (divinity, God) into the world. The book functions as biography, history, and inspiration all at once, as it introduces the remarkable women--some widely known (Marianne Williamson, Dr. Elaine Pagels), some locally known (Dr. Nahid Angha, Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis)- whose stories it tells. I disagree with "Publishers Weekly" reviewer that Rabbi Drucker's personal comments are intrusive. To the contrary, they enliven and bring immediacy to the spiritual biographies she presents and encourage the reader to bring his or her own experience to meeting these leaders. Though the book could be used for study or the classroom, its personal approach is anything but "textbookish." It's substantial, accessible, authentic, exciting and celebratory. A must-read if you are investigating or committed to matters of the spirit.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Look at the Feminine Re-emerging with Light, February 21, 2005

By 

Rev. Dr. Arlene J. Colver "Author of Magdalen... (Cable, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America (Hardcover)

Rabbi Drucker takes you into the living rooms, churches and lecture halls of thirty-one of America's notable female spiritual leaders. The author's open descriptions of her personal reactions to each interview engage the reader in both the conversation and its relevance to spirituality today. There is no doubt that Malka is doing more than collecting data. She is making friends, comrades and allies on her own quest to return the feminine voice to religious and spiritual teachings.

These women share their stories, pointing out both the joy and suffering that comes with active participation in ministry. Ranging from Jewish Rabbis, as is the author herself, to Yoruba priestess' and New Age thinkers they are stars shining a bright light on a changing world. Malka Drucker has exposed that light to guide us as we reunite the Divine Feminine with her consort.

Black and white portraits done by Gay Block reveal something about each of her subjects that would have been veiled by color. Ms Block does a wonderful job of capturing the soul through expression and setting.

Reviewer: Rev. Dr. Arlene J. Colver, Author of Magdalen's Way and From Whence They Came, Vice President of Lifelight University, Founder and Chaplain of the Society for Universal Concordance

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars surprising and inspiring, June 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America (Hardcover)

Many of my friends have read and suggested this books because of its great expressions of faith and how women are changing the face of religious leadership. They represent a new way of seeing God and a new community of leadership. Never before have so many women served the holy with earthly authority; it's a new paradigm and they might change the destructive and violent energy so prevalent in our time.